That’s Not My Problem

I remember reading a really great parable when I was younger, about a mouse, chicken, pig, cow and snake, I can’t seem to find it online, so I’ll try to explain the jist of it, hopefully:

Well here it goes….

One day, a mouse looked through a crack in the wall, hoping to spot the farmer and his wife opening some food, but to his astonishment, they were in fact opening a brand new mouse trap.

Running to the farmyard in a panic, the mouse warned the farm animals: “They just bought a mouse trap and put it in the house”.

The frightened mouse approached the pig, and explained the news that the farmer had just bought a new mouse trap.

The pig said sympathetically said, “There is nothing I can do Mr. Mouse”, but I will cross my fingers that no harm comes to you.

The mouse approached the farmyard chicken, looking for a solution, the chicken said that there was nothing he could do for him, and warned that he must be careful.

Very disappointed, by the lack of support he got from the chicken and the pig, he approached the cow, and warned her that the farmer had got a mouse trap. The cow was also very unhelpful and told the mouse: “Mr. Mouse, I’m a cow, the mouse trap cannot harm me and there is nothing I can do”.

That night there was a loud thud from the farm house. It sounded like the sound of mouse trap catching something, so the farmer’s wife rushed to see what had been caught.

She unfortunately didn’t see that the trap had caught the tail of a venomous snake; the snake turned around and gave the farmer’s wife a nasty snake bite.

After a few days in hospital, she returned home with a fever, now everyone knows the best way to treat a fever, is with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer went to the farmyard to get the catch the chicken.

His wife didn’t get better, and friends and family came to visit and sit with her. To feed the visitors, the farmer butchered the pig.

Eventually the farmer’s wife died, and to feed all the guests at the funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide the meat for the funeral.

The moral of the story is, next time someone is facing a problem and you think it doesn’t concern you, make sure that you try to help them with it, as you put everyone at risk if you don’t.

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Daniel

I am Daniel, the Marketing Coordinator for South Africa, I'm a Jack of all trades, but tend to spend most my time working on the the Rentokil, Initial & Ambius websites.
From what I understand I look after the SEO, paid search, web-based enquiries for all the South African websites, which there seems to be an improvement...so maybe they'll keep me...
When I have free time I like to add my thoughts and comments to this blog.